In the Morning, a harry potter fanfic

Borrows heavily from "Lullaby For a Stormy Night," by Vienna Teng.

The story began once upon a time, like most of Sirius's mother's stories, with a great and powerful wizard who had two sons. One was a good man who took a witch for his wife and had a great many children in the usual way, raising a proper, Pureblood family that enjoyed great status and wealth in their magical village.

The other son, she told Sirius, when she still spoke to him without hard eyes and voice, was terrible. He married a plain woman from a plain village, a Muggle, and their children were unnatural and useless. Their family was a disappointment, the son a traitor to his father and his line, and as such the great wizard became angry, and his anger became the world's first thunderstorm. It continued through the night until morning, when the emerging son revealed that the disobedient son and his family were swept away and drowned. His brother was spared, which kept their bloodlines pure and unspoiled, and they went on to create all the Pureblooded families in the world today.

"A lesson," said his mother as she put out the lights. "For you to think about, my son." Her receding figure as she closed his bedroom door was lit once, twice, by a flash of lightning beyond small Sirius's bedroom window. She did not tell him goodnight.

All through the night, Sirius's dreams were filled with water and his own screams as he imagined the rain flooding his bedroom, pulling him out of bed and threatening to pull him under. He thought he could see his mother in the bedroom doorway, watching silently and lifting no hand to help him. He was not a blood-traitor, he was only a child, he wasn't even old enough for Hogwarts, and he could not understand why his mother would let him drown.

When he woke the next morning, sweaty and exhausted, the sun shined bright through his window. He knew it had been a dream brought on by another one of his mother's terrible bedtime stories, but Sirius would never be able to shake the icy feel of rainwater seeping through his skin.

Remus woke suddenly, startled by a sound that he wasn't certain had been real. He blinked several times at the uneven darkness of the dormitory, the sound of rain against stone slowly seeping into his head, and when the room filled briefly with white light he realised that it had been thunder he'd heard and not the scrap of a half-remembered dream. Sure enough, the walls shuddered with a low rumble, like the growl of a frightened dog. A terrible storm had blown up around Hogwarts, though Remus could tell from the other sounds in the room that Peter, James and Frank were sleeping right through it.

One bed, however, was empty. Where was Sirius?

Remus stared at Sirius's bed; the blankets were thrown aside as if the occupant had fled in haste. There was no movement to the shadows in the room, nothing to suggest that Sirius was up and creeping about - not an unusual thing. Perhaps, Remus thought, he has gone down to the Common Room, or to the kitchens. It wasn't unusual for Sirius to creep about the castle at night, looking for mischief to manage on his own when James couldn't be arsed to get up.

Yet there was something unsettling about Sirius's absence, as far as Remus was concerned. It might have been the storm raging around them, the worst sort of storm Remus could remember in the nearly seven years they'd been at school, and it made Remus nervous that Sirius was up and prowling about on a night such as this. He could not tell why.

Lightning flashed, and Remus could see clearly the whole of the room - James's school trunk in it's typically disorganised state, Frank's broomstick leaning against the wall by his bed, the armchair by the window where Remus preferred to read on the lazy days following full moon.

He paused. There was something new that he could see, something glinting from under Sirius's bed. He waited for another flash of lightning, until he could clearly see a pair of eyes, belonging to a doggy face.

'Padfoot,' Remus whispered, sliding out of bed. Quietly, he went barefoot across the room, knelt down beside Sirius's bed and peered underneath. 'Is that you, Padfoot?'

The only reply was a low, keening sound, and the scratch of claws against wood as the dog backed away, scooting back further under the bed.

'What's wrong?' Remus whispered. 'Why are you under the bed?' He tilted his head, pressing the side of his face to the floor so he could look into Padfoot's eyes. 'Is it the storm?' he asked.

Padfoot whimpered.

Remus smiled. 'Oh, you big nancy. It's all right, there's no need to be frightened. It's just a storm.' He lay down flat against the stone floor, ignoring the cold, and inched under the bed, stretching out his arm until he could touch the top of Padfoot's head with his fingers. He scratched behind one ear and kept his voice low and soothing.

'Come out,' he said. 'Come on, now. Come out. It's all right. Come on.' His hand found the collar he'd given Sirius for his last birthday, charmed to appear on Padfoot even when transformed, and he curled his fingers around it. He gave a gentle tug. 'C'mon, Padfoot.'

Padfoot slowly crept out from under the bed. Remus kept a tight hold on the collar when the room filled with light again, thunder rolling in immediately after. Padfoot struggled, but under Remus's firm grip he eventually became still, though still shivering.

Now what? thought Remus, looking down at the dog in puzzlement. He'd never known that Sirius was frightened of storms, though it would explain a few things that he suddenly felt guilty for not noticing. There had been days when they could not keep Sirius awake during lessons, even his favourite ones, and one memorable morning when they'd found him asleep face-down in his eggs at breakfast. On all of those occasions, Remus realised, there had been a storm the previous night. Sirius must not have ever slept through a storm, not in the entire time they'd been at Hogwarts. Remus groaned slightly to himself, and tightened his grip on Padfoot's fur. Some friend you are to miss that, he scolded himself.

'Come on, then,' he said finally, tugging Padfoot across the room to his own bed. The dog hesitated, and Remus climbed in and patted the blankets beside him.

'Up,' he said, feeling slightly foolish to be giving commands to a dog that really wasn't a dog, but Sirius had always been more obedient when transformed. Little wonder James preferred him that way.

After another moment's hesitation, Padfoot leapt up onto the bed with a huff and settled right down, resting his chin on Remus's pillow and staring at him dolefully.

Remus smiled. 'Now,' he said, reaching out to stroke Padfoot's fur as the storm continued on all around them. 'There's nothing to be frightened of. It's just rain.' As he spoke he kept his hands moving, scratching behind the dog's ears, and the back of his neck. 'Thunder can't hurt you. It's just noise. Nothing actually happening, just a sound. And do you know what lightning is?'

The dog blinked and whinged softly. Remus took that as a no.

'It's like when James scuffs his shoes across the carpet in the Common Room and touches the back of Lily Evans's neck. It's electricity, which you of course don't know anything about because you don't use it. Lightning can hurt you, but only if you go out and stand in it.' He smiled. 'It can't get you in here. Not in a huge old castle made of stone.'

At that moment there was a spectacular crash of lightning and thunder together, and Padfoot jumped and whinged, and Remus found himself curling up against the dog the way he did on the mornings after full moon, when all he wanted was something warm, soft and comfortable to hide in until the pain subsided. He thought about how the situation was now reversed, and Remus - who had never felt much like anything that could be warm, soft or comfortable - was burrowing against the big black dog, looking to calm it and still the tremors he could feel buzzing beneath the fur.

Just like electricity, thought Remus.

'You like rain, you know,' Remus went on. 'Remember how James says Quidditch is better after the rain? The ground's softer when you land on it.' The dog gives a huff that could almost be a laugh. 'And it always smells brilliant after the rain, everything's so green and lovely in the morning.' He hugged the dog tighter. 'Rain doesn't last forever.'

He buried his face in Padfoot's neck. 'Just close your eyes and go to sleep,' he murmured. 'The rain will be over soon. Everything'll be fine in the morning.'

Remus worked his hands gently through Padfoot's fur, until the dog's breathing became even and he no longer shivered, and Remus knew he had fallen asleep. He sighed and relaxed, and he could hear the rain starting to let up and the storm moving off, toward the north. He huffed against Padfoot's ear, and smiled.

'I'll still be here,' he whispered through a yawn as his eyes drifted closed, 'in the morning.'

When Remus woke up it was to skin and not fur. Sirius was curled up against him, warm and soundly sleeping, his hair in every direction and some of it had crept into Remus's mouth. He plucked it out carefully with two fingers. His movement stirred Sirius, who opened one eye and peered at him.

'Hullo,' murmured Remus, with a shy smile. Sirius sniffed, and Remus expected him to pull away, slip out of the bed, and everything to be awkward. Instead, Sirius moved closer, and one arm came around Remus's side.

'G'morning,' said Sirius. He smiled back, and then that smile came forward and Remus found it pressed against his own. He held his body still and moved only his mouth. Sirius tasted of rainwater. When Remus finally closed his eyes he saw flashes behind them, lightning-quick and just as bright.

When they parted Sirius smiled again, warm and fearless like the sun, and Remus would never forget why he always loved the morning after a storm.